Eye Recommend --- Kansas Governor Sam Brownback Cries During Meeting About State Budget He Destroyed

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R), before the tears started

KANSAS GOVERNOR SAM BROWNBACK CRIES DURING MEETING ABOUT STATE BUDGET HE DESTROYED, by Jameson Parker --
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/13/kansas-governor-sam-brownback-cries-during-meeting-about-state-budget-he-destroyed/

what eye thynk:  I've followed the Sam Brownback-created, Ayn Rand-inspired debacle in Kansas for a few months now and written about him at least three times: 

Gov. Brownback Wants to Be King

In Kansas-No Lingerie, No Cookies for Poor; but Guns are Fine

University to Pre-School, the Republican Disdain for Education  

Just when I thought there was nowhere for Kansas to go but up; the state's Republican leadership proves me wrong. 

"Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) 'got emotional' during a private meeting with Kansas House Republicans because learning that there are no good options once you almost singlehandedly (sic) tank your state's economy on a quixotic quest to prove conservative economic theories work is a very bitter pill to swallow.

According to unnamed legislators who spoke with the Topeka Capital-Journal, Brownback choked back tears during the session when it became abundantly clear that there was simply no good way to pull Kansas out of the truly massive budget deficit it finds itself in.  Even worse, Republicans...have repeatedly taken the one thing that could help the economy off the table: raising taxes on the wealthy.

Instead, the group of conservatives are struggling to find money elsewhere.  So far this has meant taxing things like cigarettes and liquor, slashing the budgets of many state governmental agencies by 4 percent, taking money away from infrastructure funds and closing many schools in the state early to save cost on education."

Because, really, who needs educated citizens, right?  Teach them to think and they'll vote the GOP out; can't have that!  And decent roads and safe bridges are so overrated.  As for those government agencies--why, oh why, can't people simply learn to take care of themselves?

"As it stands, in his few years in office, Brownback has taken Kansas from a budget surplus to an $800 million shortfall."

Bush-the-Second did a better job of squandering a surplus; but then W had more money to play with and Cheney to tell him how to spend it.

"His only beneficiaries--thousands of business owners who no longer have to pay taxes."

Under Mr. Brownback's leadership, Kansas exempted the owners of 191,000 businesses from having to pay any income tax at all.

"And how did exempting 191,000 'job creators' from paying state taxes work out?  It certainly doesn't look like the kind of free market utopia Ayn Rand promised.  That is, unless lagging employment figures, a stagnant economy and schools that close weeks early are intentional features of the shining city on a hill that Reagan always talked about.

Things have been shifting from bad to worse.  Brownback was forced to concede that if these latest stabs at budget hole fillers don't work, he will have to order a general 6 percent cut across the entire state's budget--a devastating loss of money for already underfunded services for Kansans.  Regardless of your particular political bent, 'My state has no money and we can't afford to pay our bills' isn't a great position to be in.

So Brownback is upset...

...His colleagues took Brownback's tears to signify his 'passion for Kansans' but it may have been despair over his impending unemployment.  (As you can imagine, being unemployed in Kansas is no picnic.)... Today, Kansans cannot ignore the problems that are facing their state, and the man most responsible for them...

...And still he remains defiant about raising taxes.  At least on the rich.  He wants to see what the state can squeeze out of the lower and middle class first.  Brownback's current proposal is to continue raising the sales tax until the poor and middle class make up the difference left behind by the 191,000 'job creators.'...

...Brownback has long been billed by conservatives as a 'tax cutting superstar' and a hero of conservative economic values.  However, he clearly doesn't mind making the poor pay a bit more when the budget needs it.  It turns out that it wasn't taxes he hated, it's that the people paying them were in the wrong income bracket.

Kansas' GOP legislators might want to believe that Governor Brownback's watery eyes were a demonstration of his "passion" for his state's citizens; but I'd say humiliation played some part in the gubenatorial waterworks.  Going from hero to goat must hurt--though his pain can't come near to what the people of Kansas are experiencing.